Does IP Address Reveal My Physical Location?

This is an article on Does IP Address Reveal My Physical Location? in Engineering Concepts.

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Are You Invisible Online?

It's true that your IP address is no secret. It's a basic part of internet communication protocols to send your IP address whenever you connect to another site, request a web page, chat, play an online game, etc. Without your IP address, the computer on the other end wouldn't know where to send the reply.

But that doesn't mean that Evildoers can find your house if they know your IP address. Each time you go online (if you have dialup) or each time you start your computer (if you have cable or dsl) you will be assigned an IP address, randomly selected from a pool of IP's assigned to your Internet service provider (ISP). WHOIS Your ISP

So a person MIGHT be able to get a general idea of your geographic location, based on your IP address, by doing a lookup on the WHOIS database, but that will only tell them the physical location of your ISP -- not YOUR home address.

And if you use a large regional or nationwide ISP, the IP lookup probably reveals nothing of interest. For example, if you are an AOL subscriber, your IP address lookup will show the location as Dulles, Virginia -- regardless of where you live.

When The Law Comes A Knockin'

Of course there is an exception to every rule. If Joe or Jane User calls your ISP and wants to know who was using a certain IP address last Tuesday, the ISP will tell them to go away. But if an officer of the law hands your ISP a court order to reveal that information, they must do so. Your ISP's logs will enable them to determine which customer was using a certain IP address on a certain date & time, and they must reveal that information if a court has found probable cause that a crime was committed by that person.

But for the truly paranoid (or the criminally inclined) there are ways to surf the web anonymously. The Anonymizer service will act as a proxy between you and your ISP, and they claim that your information cannot be subpoenaed because they do not store it.

What About Email Addresses?

The same concepts apply to your email address. The part that follows the "@" sign is your ISP's domain name. And given the domain name, one can determine the ISP's physical location, but nothing personally identifying about the email user without a court order.

Web-based email accounts are not truly anonymous, either. Even if you don't provide your real name when signing up, they can capture your IP address and track you through your ISP if necessary. Other Considerations

It's much more likely that you or your children will reveal your physical location the old fashioned way -- by just blurting it out. Kids who chat or play online games should be reminded often that they should never reveal any personal information, including their last name, phone number or home address.

Oh, and if you have any spyware or viruses on your system, all bets are off. These things are designed to violate your privacy.

"But for the truly paranoid (or the criminally inclined) there are ways to surf the web anonymously. The Anonymizer service will act as a proxy between you and your ISP, and they claim that your information cannot be subpoenaed because they do not store it."

Proxy servers can be a threat to a normal user. It has been found that many proxy servers are operated by black-hat hackers and they sniff the information which gets through it thus confidentiality is compromised. Also proxy servers are extensively used in DoS,DDoS,DRoS attacks. Be prudent before using Proxy Servers

I read one of the posts about ip addresses by pradeep and how no one can find out ur personal details from having your ip address..

I wanted to ask 2 questions. I recently joined a forum of which the owner adminsitor did not like me at all for personal reasons. Having registered on the forum can that person attain my Ip address? I have now left that forum can that person still find my ip address?

More importantly, can this person who is so advanced and knows his way around the computer and software etc etc - this person is very knowledgable.

With this in mind can this person or anyone who may be so so advance find out my true identity and personal details such as my house address, my name, etc? Is it possible for them to find out? As i am so worried about this

And can special software or anything help this person or anyone else find my personal details such as my house address?

What if someone know's / has contacts who work at your ISP to which your IP belongs then surely they can find out the personal details right?

I remember this person saying they have contacts in certain ISP, but trying to be clever that person did not reveal which one. Obviously from the WHOIS u can find the ISP details to a particular IP address.

Getting personal details from IP address itself is tough....Yes it is possible for most of times to get the ISP from IP...but in some cases i have observed (as in BSNL) WHOIS query doesnt reveal anything !

Talking about getting home address,phone-number etc. is not possible....unless someone has gained access to confidential data of ISP or someone working for ISP -> for this one i dont really have any idea....but might be able to get i can only say that !

I coonect to the Internet on my Laptop - by hacking / picking up on someone's Linksys connection. A few things I wanted to ask, firstly when I enter a chatroom I don't have my real Ip address displayed on the chatroom screen as it usually is, instead there is another Ip address which strates from 192.168..etc. I did a quick 'find my ip address' search online and was presented by a completely different Ip address. Why is that the case, I mean why does the chatroom screen not display my 'real' ip address? Does this mean when I go into chatrooms, the adminstrators only see this 192.168.... Ip address as opposed to my 'real' one?

Secondly, by a hacker knowing my IP address can he find out my personal details or hack me without my acknowledgement? Note: I am not using my own connection router, I have gained connection to an unsecured connection I have picked up from my home.

And if they can hack into my IP address, well it isn't my IP address is it? So they can't gain my personal details can they?

Please someone clear this up for me.

I am aware that a person can pick up on the linksys connection I have already picked up from someone else, but they can only do that if they are near me right? Like in the same neighbourhood as me etc? right?

Well u connected to the wireless router the router assigns you a private IP address, the router itself may be a node on the ISP's private network, where the router uses the ISP's gateway to connect to the internet.
You connect something like this,
Your Lappy -> Wireless Router -> ISP -> Internet

Someone on the private network can surely hack in, but its not quite possible for someone hacking into your system via the internet!